Known card ejection mechanisms typically comprise a metal shell, an ejection rod and an ejection lever. The metal shell is attached to the connector body and covers at least a part of a Compact Flash ("CF") card or other type of memory card inserted in the card connector. The metal shell has a guide section at one side thereof, and the ejection rod is slidably attached within the guide section. The ejection lever is rotatable attached to the metal shell, and is operatively connected to the ejection rod such that the ejection lever is rotated when the ejection rod is pushed. The ejection lever has a card-engagement projection formed on one end thereof to contact one side of the card, permitting ejection of the CF card from the card connector by rotation of the ejection lever.
In conventional card ejection mechanisms, the ejection rod is typically fabricated of plastic and is relatively thick in order to endow the rod with a minimum strength. Also, the guide section must allow for clearance of the plastic rod which will generally be fabricated with a relatively wide tolerance range. Accordingly the lateral size of the guide section and ejection rod is relatively large with the result that the width of the card ejection mechanism, and hence the card connector, is increased significantly. In today's trend of down-sizing electronic devices equipped with such card connectors, it is important that these card connectors remain as small as possible. Furthermore, the increased clearance in the guide section to accommodate the plastic ejection rod may actually afford too much clearance in the guide section such that the ejection rod is loose within the guide section. This looseness can cause operating forces to deviate, thus causing an undesired component force to be applied to the metal shell and possibly causing damage or deformation of the shell and certainly increasing the force required to eject a card.